Chambers adopts much the same scheme:
Like a wedge in a block, wring to the bar,
Bearing like asses, and more shameless far
Than carted whores; lie to the grave judge, for ...
By retaining the comma after 'bar' in a modernized text with modern punctuation these editors leave it doubtful whether they do or do not consider that 'asses' is the object to 'wring'. Further, they connect 'and more shameless far than carted whores' closely with 'asses', separating it by a semicolon from 'lie to the grave judge'. I take it that 'more shameless far' is regarded by these editors as a qualifying adjunct to 'asses'. This is surely wrong. The subject of the long sentence is 'He' (l. 65), and the infinitives throughout are complements to 'must': 'He must walk ... he must talk ... [he must] lie ... [he must] wring to the bar bearing-like asses; [he must], more shameless than carted whores, lie to the grave judge, &c.' This is the only method in which I can construe the passage, and it carries with it the assumption that 'bearing like' should be connected by a hyphen to form an adjective similar to 'Relique-like', which is the MS. form of 'Relique-ly' at l. 84. Certainly it is 'he', Coscus, who is 'more shameless, &c.,' not his victims. These are the 'bearing-like asses', the patient Catholics or suspected Catholics whom he wrings to the bar and forces to disgorge fines. Coscus, a poet in his youth, has become a Topcliffe in his maturer years. 'Bearing,' 'patient' is the regular epithet for asses in Elizabethan literature:
Asses are made to bear and so are you.
Taming of the Shrew, II. i. 200.
In Jonson's Poetaster, v. i, the ass is declared to be the hieroglyphic of
Patience, frugality, and fortitude.
Possibly, but it is not very likely, Donne refers not only to the stupid patience of the ass but to her fertility: 'They be very gainefull and profitable to their maisters, yielding more commodities than the revenues of good farmers.' Holland's Pliny, 8. 43, Of Asses.